Page 82 of I Love to Hate You
I position Maya flat on her back and inspect her body, looking for traces of blood and entry wounds. When I find none, I search her for bruises and abrasions of any kind, because the promise remains—whatever I find on her, I will give back to Jack, even if I have to beat him in his sleep. Luckily for him and my own mental health, I find nothing. I move to the next step of trying to wake her up and make sure she’s okay. I slap her on the face gently, tapping her cheek in the hopes that she’ll come to.
“Maya.” I whisper at first, then I scream. “Maya! Come on, Maya. Wake up. Open your eyes for me, Baby Girl. Come on.”
She’s completely unresponsive. Her eyelids don’t even flutter. The only reaction is when I notice her struggling. Her stomach lurches up and down and her mouth forms an O shape as her head lifts off the bed and she gags.
“Shit,” I say as I quickly force her onto her shoulder just in time for the vomit to come spewing out onto the bed. It’s not a lot, but when Maya still doesn’t wake up, I know she’s in trouble.
My first thought is to call the ambulance, but this is Kensington, which may as well be Strawberry Mansion. Calling emergency services out here always takes far too long. I don’t know what it is about neighborhoods like this, but we can never get help as quickly as we need it in emergency situations, but the cops are always around when there are no crimes being committed. Such is the life of people in underfunded, over-policed neighborhoods. I’ve spent my entire life here, and I know that by the time an ambulance pulls up to this house, Maya could be dead. So I exercise my only option.
“Come on, baby,” I say as I position myself on the side of the bed and lift Maya into my arms. “We’re getting you out of here.”
Adrenaline bursts to life and floods my veins, fueling me with extra strength to carry Maya’s dead weight up the stairs and through the narrow hallway. I kick debris out of the way and barely manage to keep from tripping, but I make it out of the house and to my car, where I struggle to open the back door and set her down on her side. Once she’s safely tucked inside, I go to hop into the front seat but stop halfway.
Jack.
A million thoughts formulate in my mind, but the one that sticks reminds me that he’s Maya’s father, and I shouldn’t leave him here. Listening to that one thought sends me running back into the house, stomping over the trash and stopping at the foot of his bed.
“Shit,” I exclaim when I see him. Jack has puked all over himself. His nose and mouth are both covered in far more vomit than Maya ejected, and he’s still on his back. He begins to gurgle before his body tries to cough, but since he’s on his back, he can’t force out enough air to clear his throat. If I don’t do something, he could choke to death.
I stare at him, watching as he struggles to get air, his chest caving in before jutting out. It won’t take very long, and I know that all I have to do is leave him there and all of Maya’s worst problems will be over. She’ll be free of his bullshit—free to heal from the loss of her mother and move on to be a successful woman who has overcome tragedy. Maya’s happiness is being born right here in this room with the death of this fucking asshole. I should let it happen. He deserves no sympathy, but he’s the only parent Maya has left, so I move toward him.
It's going to be a struggle to lift a grown man, but before I can even think of doing that, I have to keep him from choking to death on his own vomit. I grab him by the shoulders and turn him onto his side the same way I did Maya in the basement. It’s much harder because he’s so heavy, and I have to strain to move him. Just as I get some momentum built up and start to roll him, time slows down and I watch the scene play out in slow motion.
Jack rolls to his side, trapping one shoulder underneath his body, and in the same instant, his free arm lazily slides across the bed until his hand comes in contact with the gun that I didn’t think to move. I watch his fingers come to life like little zombies and wrap around the handle of the pistol. As he lets out a drunken groan, Jack lifts his arm just enough to point the gun at my chest.
I jump back with cat-like reflexes, letting go of Jack’s shoulders and diving to the ground to avoid being on the wrong end of the gun. “Jack, what the fuck are you doing? I’m trying to save you, you son of a bitch.”
The gun never goes off, and I hear the moment Jack’s body rolls back to its original position and his arm drops down to the bed again. Slowly, I peek over the edge of the mattress and find him unconscious on his back, the gun still gripped tight in his grasp, and vomit still bubbling between his lips.
I stand up, my heart pounding as I look at him and the realization hits me. I don’t have time for this. If I continue to waste precious seconds and minutes dealing with Jack, who is now holding a gun, I could lose Maya. What if he unconsciously shoots me? All three of us could die right here in this house.
I can’t risk it. I have no choice but to leave him, because I have to protect myself from the gun in his hand, and I have to save Maya. With tears in my eyes, I turn around and sprint out of the house. When I reach the car, I check on Maya and find that she’s still breathing, and then I’m in the front seat with my fingers gripping the steering wheel and my foot stomping the gas.
Maya
Forty-Nine
~ MAYA~
Light pours in, giving me an instant headache the moment my eyes open, and when mixed with the confusion I feel about where I am, my level of discomfort is through the roof. My brow furrows as pain surges back and forth between my temples, and I let out a groan that sends agony shooting up my throat like I’m puking out a bullet. When I attempt to move my hand up to my head, there’s another sharp pain from a tube stuck in the back of my hand. My entire body is in agony so overwhelming that tears immediately fill my eyes and panic consumes my chest. I begin to breathe hard, looking around a room I don’t recognize and wondering what happened to the world I was in before this moment. I feel like I’m going to scream, but movement next to me catches my attention and my eyes dart over.
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. Calm down,” Kendrick says, lifting himself out of a chair positioned directly next to the bed I realize I’m lying in. “It’s me, Maya. I’m here. I’m with you. You’re okay.”
The alarms blaring in my head slowly subside as recognition comforts me. Kendrick takes my hand in his, and just the touch of his skin is enough to slow my breathing and reduce the panic. I settle down and try to talk, but it hurts to even make an attempt. I raise a hand to my throat, and Kendrick nods.
“Yeah, it could hurt to talk for a little while,” he says. “You had a tube down your throat just a couple of hours ago.” When my eyes bulge, Kendrick continues. “They had to pump your stomach. If they didn’t, you could’ve died from alcohol poisoning. Luckily, I got you here in time and you’re going to be okay.”
My eyes mist over as the memory of last night comes back to me like movie scenes being shown through a thick, murky filter in my mind. I don’t remember much after I started drinking, only walking through a destroyed house and seeing my father emerge from his room with a bottle of liquor. There’s not much after that, the moments being replaced by a dreadful sadness before everything goes completely dark and I wake up here.
I clear my throat and try again to speak, and just like the first time, it’s agonizing.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk,” Kendrick says, but I’m hard-headed and determined.
I clear my throat again and force air out of my mouth, followed by hoarse words that sound like a croaking frog.
“You saved me?”
Kendrick drops his head for a moment, pain sweeping across his face before he shakes it away and looks up again.
